13. My husband.14. Pilates on Saturday mornings.15. Listening to Margot read books by herself.16. Knowing my girls won’t get up at 5:30am forever, right? Right?!17. Sewing clothes for my daughters.18. The very idea that I have daughters.

Upon realizing I didn’t have any photos of myself and my girls, Andy administered an impromptu photo shoot yesterday morning before our walk. I simply couldn’t pick one or two to include here. Because together they tell our story. We rarely look at the camera at the same time and we mostly have lots of fun.

32. My blog and the community that spouted up around it. It brings me so much joy. I have wanted to GIVE since we were on the verge of it all at the hospital with our newborn and I fell in deep, not-looking-back love with this place. Writing was my outlet while I was stuck in a room with my sick baby and your comments and e mails were my therapy. The stories and poems you shared, the support and love you gave…I just never expected to be a part of something so big and powerful when I started my blogger account nearly three years ago.

I am so grateful for all of the beauty in my world and I adore writing and taking photos and sharing it. I have great fun and you, dear readers, fuel dig in so many ways. So, thanks! And, I want to give you stuff!

Leave a comment and I’ll pick three people to receive a potholder and a set of my postcards. Comments will close Friday morning, February 12 when I’ll randomly select the winners. xo!

105 Responses to 32 (and a giveaway!)

Many happy blessings and joy to you on your birthday, Nici. Your list to celebrate was amazing (although HOW you accomplish #23 I haven’t a clue…) – and the smiles of you and your girls just lightens the load of a Monday morn.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! And lovely photos… Andy did a good job, and his subjects seemed to enjoy the process, too.

p.s. We share a birthday, but I’m a little older (although definitely not wiser) than you. Officially, I turned 34 at something ridiculous like 4:45am today. (My poor mom! Not the first time I kept her up all night…

Happy Birthday and happy days all year. Thanks for sharing that joyful video. And the beautiful photo of Alice in the snow, my favorite photo in this post (you can tell where my heart lies).Love the birdie potholder!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you…..You have brightened my life and given me a much needed anchor to home as we travel this big, wide world on our grand adventure. Your blog is my antidote to homesickness. Thank you for sharing your beautiful life.

You are your girls are so beautiful. I am so glad everyone is happy and healthy. And even more since reading your blog I am more grateful of my own world and more mystified by all of it. Its the little things and that is what your blog gives me! thank you. and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!Hope its amazing!!

You inspire me! When I’m feeling unmotivated and stuck in a rut I open up your blog and read and look at your pictures…it always helps! In fact, we started our own little pancake morning this week because of your yummy looking family mornings. Thanks!

Hi Nic-Happy Birthday. This post made me miss you!!Shoot, you live right down the road. I love the picture of you holding Ruby on the end of the bed, and Margot on the other end making a funny face. I am on the mend (still have an ear infections but 8 days into the antibiotics)You know what I really love is that my friends from afar read your blog and get a glimpse of life here in Missoula, and you do a damn good job of telling a great story. Love you!

Happy Birthday!! I love the photo shoot pics, and the one of the kids in the jogger, Ruby bundled in the Ergo down on the bottom. What fun! I’m so happy to have stumbled here. It is so great to be a mom. You show so much joy! Enjoy your day.

I have been following silently, communing with you in spirit, for some time now. Today I wanted to send you birthday wishes and thanks for your words and photos, vignettes of LIFE, just as it is.

I will be 32 this month also, on the 23rd, and shhhhh, don’t tell anyone, but I should be able to take a pregnancy test that morning after a planned insemination that’s happening like.right.now! (today or tomorrow, anyway)

Well, how fortuitous that I happen upon your blog on this day! Happiest of birthdays to you!! I’ve spent the last little bit reading through your blog and I’m loving it. Your children are adorable! And you live in Missoula, which will always be home to me. We recently (uh, like 2.5 years ago) had to move to Bozeman for a job and we miss Msla like mad. Though, I do love how we get WAY more sun here.

Beautiful post, Nici- so much in this amazing world to be thankful for, thrilled by, wooo hooo! And happy birthday!

Just today had an offer accepted on the first ever home I will live in with my name on the title! Those potholders would be fabulous in my new kitchen! So exciting! You make such lovely things…oh and the potholders are nice, too!

Nici-I love your blog! I recently moved away from Missoula (I know, how could I leave Missoula?!?). I have been following your blog for over a year now, but it has recently taken on a different role in my life. I love that your blog keeps me connected to Missoula and reminds me of all the things I love and miss about it: snowy walks in the rattlesnake, Artini, cute fabric from selvedge… for example. Anyway, thanks for helping to keep me connected to such a wonderful place.Cheers to you on your birthday!

Happy Birthday Nici….What beautiful photos of you and your adorable girls! Well done you for doing what we so often neglect to do, take the time to list what we have acheived and what we are thankful for rather than the things we haven’t done!!I love your blog, wishing you a wonderful year ahead…Dee – BabyGalah

Happy Birthday Nici… What a wonderful blog, as always. I really really look forward to reading it weekly and catching up with you, Andy and sweet sweet girls lives! It’s hard to believe it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. One of these days hopefully we will cross paths in good ol’ Montana!

Happy Birthday! I am semi new to blogging, but I have been attached to yours for many months now. It has been great to see your family all healthy and even though I only see your life through your blog I can really tell it is full of love. Thanks for being such a great blogger and keep sharing!

You are so sweet to want to give gifts. It is your birthday! Your blog is a gift to me. You remind me to cherish my two boys and enjoy the small wonders they bring. I happened upon you in the midst of sick baby hell. I read your posts and wept with my own memories of sitting bedside in a hospital room, waiting and fearing that each asthmatic breath would be my tiny baby’s last. Isn’t it amazing how quickly small kids turn it around and bounce back! Just amazing!

it is so refreshing to really know that there are others that go through some of the things you do! thank you for your words, your blog is like reading a great novel! and the pictures, well daughter Lilli loves “looking at her piggy friend on TV” !!! Happy BIRTH Day to you!

Happy Birthday, Nici.I often think back to those nights after leaving Bridge Creek, hanging out and drinking an ice cold beer. Never thought much about life ahead..us with such amazing beautiful children, us as moms’ one day. And I certainly never would’ve thought that through our blogs someday we would watch our children grow and see the world bloom around us. Love to you and your dear fam. Miss you tons,k

Happy Birthday! I can’t wait to hear about what adventures unfold in your kitchen, garden and around your family this thirty-second year. I love your list idea and want to do it for my babes. What would your list have been in your fifth year or at age ten? What a great tradition it would be to read this over cake each year and for those to come. Love your pot holders; the perfect thing for taking bread out of the oven. I like coming here – miss your family and Montana. Looking forward to lugging your wedding gift back to you this year:)

Happy Birthday! Love your blog, i have made several recipes and next on my list is a new henhouse. Your potholders are adorable(anthropologie who?)the fabric choices are perfect. thanks for the inspiration.

Hi!You don’t know me, but I really love your blog. You truly inspire me through your wonderful pictures and great writing. I started reading your blog when I found out your daughter was due at the same time as mine, we both have two kids, we both LOVE Montana (I was born and raised there), and I went to the U of M and lived in Missoula for four years. I prayed for your daughter Ruby while she was in the hospital (and I don’t really pray often) and I just wanted you to know that I’m a big fan. I wish you and your family the best in all your endeavors and I can’t wait to read about them!!I truly thank you for your inspiring words and pictures. Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Nici, I enjoy reading your blogs after a long day at work. I live in the country and absolutely love it, but I work in the city and when I read your blogs after my day of craziness, it really grounds me and makes me appreciate my home and all I have. Your such a great inspiration. Thank you for blogging.

Take care,CrystalP.S. you don’t need to send me anything. Your blogs are enough for me.

I just found your blog today. I was inspired by the first post I read and linked to your blog from mine because I knew it was a place I wanted to be inspired from again. Thank you…your family and your potholders are beautiful!

What a great post. I loved Alice in the snow. My dog, Logan, always has that regal look, only much tinier. I hope you have a wonderful day. It’s been a huge pleasure to be a part of your online community.

I’ve been a lurking reader for just about a year now. I remember the first new posts I read were a little before you announced that you were pregnant with Ruby. I love reading your posts and have even moved your blog into my “friends” folder, which only contains blogs of close friends and people that I’ve known. I hope you had a wonderful birthday. Although, I’m still in college. You inspire me to want to be a great mom someday and enjoy living. Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday (a little belated!) I started reading your blog after the Indy did the article on you helping Jeanne (thanks, I am due on March 1 and having a hospital birth!) You did get a good haircut! I fear the triangle too…I’m too pregnant to care right now, but when I do again, maybe I’ll get all ambitious and find someone to cut it short…Love your blog…its so fun to see the two girls becoming pals (I have a 3 year old daughter and my new one on the way is a girl too.)I love their cute clothes…I’m always checking etsy to see if there are any of those cool skirts I’ve seen on Margot with the leg warmers (they’d suite my little monkey well.)Thanks again for your blog…and happy bday!brandyleeeee@yahoo.com

I love your list. I will be 40 in a few months – the idea is a bit much for me, even though I’ve never, ever cared before. So I’m going to use your idea. I may even start now…40 is a pretty big number! (but not compared to the number of blessings in my life)

happy happy birthday, dear Nici. And thank you so very much for sharing your lives with us. I feel like I know Margot and Ruby better than my own niece and nephew, and I have to remind myself that, should we ever cross paths in Red Lodge or in Minneapolis, I can’t go running up to Margot for a big hug, because she won’t know me the way I know her. But… I hope to get that chance someday!Love you all, little family!

Many, many happy returns! I was recently introduced to your blog, and I’ve been following it religiously. So many of us laugh (and sometimes cringe) along with your adventures in mamahood, and cried and prayed for little Ruby, and find inspiration from your creativity every week. Thank you so much! Have a wonderful year!

happy birthday, nici, i had no idea, of course, but am glad to hear that the M & R arrived, along with your N’s, in time for birthday week. i loved making them & may have told you, they hold a special place in my heart, too: i collect m’s & r’s for hubby and moi’s initials.

i also just had to leave a note here because of the pot holders: something i love in life, that my sisters and mom and i all have a love for (i use my grandmothers). they’re great.

I hope I’m not too late to enter the giveaway! I so enjoy your blog, and would love another set of postcards so I can actully send some. The ones have are too pretty to send and I want to keep hem for myself!